Page 89 of Captive Omega

When I discovered I was pregnant, I was throwing up constantly. Morning sickness, I soon learned, wasn’t something relegated to the morning hours.

The second I woke up, I needed to throw up. Get up too fast? Throw up. Turn around? Throw up.

One week was so bad, I swear I was permanently green.

Other than a bucket beside my bed and a glass of tepid tap water, no one gave a shit. The alpha cared more about my inability to fuck whenever he wanted, and that my pregnancy meant no more omega who went wild for sex, begging for an alpha’s knot every three months.

One time I woke to him discussing getting rid of my baby.

I quietly considered how I could kill him in the most painful way possible. It hadn’t come to that. Thankfully. Mostly because, in our world, an omega capable of having babies will always be more valuable to alphas than one who can’t.

So I got to keep my baby. I spent days, then weeks throwing up, trying to force down bananas and the most tasteless food possible, so I had the strength to fight back and escape the first chance I got.

Then the morning sickness eased and my alpha traded me to Nathaniel Lang, who, one Friday, took me to Asylum for their usual omega auction. It was there that a terrified blonde omega stumbled into the cell beside mine.

Everleigh.

For the longest time, I’d wondered what had happened to her. They’d dragged her away to the auction, and I hadn’t seen her again. I’d known I wouldn’t. After the auctions, they take the sold girls to the receiving rooms to await collection.

Other than being bored silly, I’ve been watching a lot of TV. People are turning on the Omega Institute for not doing enough to protect omegas. Some families are now refusing to send their children to Haven Academy because a lot of the alpha families have been implicated in the abuses.

Things are changing in the city.

They’re not changing fast enough for my liking.

I’m ready to get back to work tracking down Dexter Pieter or his assistants. I’d asked to borrow a laptop to continue my search from bed. Instant no. In their eyes, bedrest means… actually, you know, resting, so no laptop or research or work for me.

Just bone idleness, trashy TV, greasy food, interspersed with news, bathroom breaks, and napping until a nightmare shocked me awake. It’s time to get up.

I slip one leg out of bed. “I need to?—”

“—sit your pretty ass right there, use the pillow I got you for your back, and tell me what you need so I can get it for you,” Vaughn interrupts.

I study said pillow.

It’s long, narrow, and sloped. The perfect shape to cushion my lower back, which, as a back sleeper, I didn’t know what I was missing. I don’t know why Vaughn thought I needed a pillow for my back, but I’m glad he did. It has become my new favorite thing, surpassing the fancy apple juice.

I asked Vaughn if they had any, and someone must have sent Lex out or he ordered some in because I woke up to six different cartons of apple juice. When I identified the fifth as fancy apple juice, I’ve had a steady supply of it since then.

I’m approaching the point I should dial it back before I make myself sick. Or, most likely, the store they’re buying it from runs out.

“You’ve been sitting on the floor for hours. Surely you have stuff to do.” And not only sitting, sometimes he’s sprawled over my floor near the door thumbing through a book he refuses to let me get one peek at.

When I asked why it was only him and Lex who came in to bring me things, he said they’d had a meeting and come to the agreement that this room was an alpha-free zone.

What did he call it?

Omega territory. No alphas allowed.

It confused me so much at first I wasn’t sure what to think. Now I do.

Relief.

No alphas and a beta at my beck and call. My life has done a complete three-sixty.

“I have stuff to do.” He turns a page. “I’m doing it.”

And that something seems to be not letting me lift a finger to do anything or go anywhere but rest. Eat and rest. Rest and eat. That’s it.

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